Christie Pollin, a high-school tennis player from Mendham, New Jersey, is meticulous about her on-court attire; she always layers bright orange or blue tennis skirts over Nike shorts and pairs them with white Adidas tank tops.
Her clothing is inspired by that of her tennis idols, said Pollin, 16, who came to Manhattan last week with her mother to watch Rafael Nadal play a few points against Roger Federer at a court set up on East 54th Street. The event, co-sponsored by Nike, previewed the fashions that the top-seeded men planned to wear at the US Open.
“I love Nadal's capri pants and sleeveless shirts,” Pollin said. “I like bold outfits that tell your opponent you are going to be a little rebellious and defiant out there.”
Turning to her mother, Cathy, she added, “Mom, do you remember when Serena bedazzled her shorts?”
Grand Slam tournaments have always served as fashion runways for top players. In the 1970s, Bjorn Borg, with his leonine mane and body-hugging Fila shirts, and Jimmy Connors, in tight shorts and sweater vests, were the rock stars of sports. In the 1990s, Pete Sampras chose a more classic style while his frequent opponent, Andre Agassi, espoused a rebel tennis chic.
But, as a new generation of players like Maria Sharapova establish themselves as walking advertisements, promoting merchandise like Tag Heuer watches and Motorola phones, they are relying more heavily on attention-getting fashions as a way to distinguish themselves from their competitors and grab headlines. For some tennis players, the US Open is becoming like the Oscars, an event at which the audience pays as much — or more — attention to the togs as the talent.
“Tennis clothing has always been very revelatory, demonstrating the different personality of each champion, but today's tennis players are becoming fashion idols for a whole generation,” said Diane Elisabeth Poirier, a fashion historian in Paris and the author of Tennis Fashion. “Some of the younger players, especially the Russians, are as alluring as fashion models, which makes more women want to look like them and dress like them.”
Short streamlined tennis dresses and bright-colored tennis shirts have become trendy partly because athletic brands have been hiring fashion-forward designers to create entire lines around celebrity players and because high-fashion designers themselves are suddenly finding inspiration in tennis for their own collections, Poirier said.
Adidas, for example, recently tapped the designer Stella McCartney to create a new line. And, earlier this year, Ralph Lauren designed the officials' uniforms worn at Wimbledon.
Americans spend about US$534 million a year on specialty pro tennis clothes, according to the Tennis Industry Association. When designer clothing is included, the total is closer to US$1 billion, estimated Marshal Cohen, the chief analyst for NPD Group, a market research company that tracks clothing trends and sales.
“This is the year that tennis has really become fashionable attire, the year you walk into any department store and see designers like Ralph, Tommy and Lilly Pulitzer showing tennis-inspired looks,” Cohen said, referring to Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger.
Although Sharapova has landed on the covers of magazines from Forbes to ESPN, she is not the first player to inspire fashion groupies.
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